The St. Louis Cardinals have been in this position before: A team that looked out of the playoff race only to charge back toward the front late in the game. It happened last season when they ran down the Atlanta Braves in the final month to win the lone wild card berth and eventually the whole thing in a dramatic seven-game World Series.

We could be witnessing something similar this year.

Repeat performance?

As they were last season, the Cardinals are most likely out of the running for the National League Central title. The Cincinnati Reds have just about cemented that honor with their eight-and-a-half game lead over St. Louis heading into the weekend.

However, the Cardinals have moved from being outside the playoff picture to holding onto the second wild card spot with three games left in a four game set with the East-leading Washington Nationals. The Cardinals haven’t been able to improve their position much lately thanks to four losses in their last five games, including Thursday's 8-1 loss to the Nationals. Their lead for the second wild card spot is down to just a half-game over the Bucs.

St. Louis could get a momentum shift over the weekend, though, considering the Nationals have played worse. Washington has lost five of its last seven games, and the strength of the team, starting pitching, hasn’t been its normal dominating self lately. Over those last six games, the rotation has a 4.17 ERA (19 earned runs in 41 innings), highlighted by ace Stephen Strasburg allowing five earned and seven overall in five innings against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday.

The rotation started to get things in order in Thursday's win with Edwin Jackson tossing eight innings and allowing no earned runs in the win. Washington will throw Gio Gonzalez (16-7, 3.28) tonight, Jordan Zimmermann (9-8, 2.63) on Saturday and Strasburg (15-6, 3.05) on Sunday.

The Nationals’ offense also needs to get going. Before scoring eight runs on Wednesday to end a five-game losing streak, the lineup had produced six total runs in those five losses, and in August the Nationals have been a mediocre offensive club.

The real deal

The Baltimore Orioles were supposed to have faded into an early summer memory by now. Their starting pitching doesn’t seem to be good enough and their minus-44 run differential is easily the worst of any team still in playoff contention.

Yet here they are, still hanging around heading into a three-game series in the Bronx to take on the New York Yankees. Baltimore has won 17 of its last 24 games to pull within three games of the Yankees as the series starts Friday. During that same span, the Yankees have gone 13-11 and are now being chased down by not only the Orioles but also by the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Yankees appear to be in OK shape for tonight with Hiroki Kuroda getting the ball coming off three straight starts of at least eight innings pitched. The team has won nine of his last 12 starts.

Let the showdown begin

The Chicago White Sox are living up to expectations (a season late), and the Detroit Tigers are falling short of the ones created for them after their offseason signing of Prince Fielder.

The ChiSox have a three-game lead in the AL Central, leaving the Tigers as the desperate team heading into September. They have played well in August but were just swept by the Kansas City Royals. Luckily they didn’t lose any ground in the standings.

The White Sox entered the week with a six-game winning streak but lost three of four against the Orioles before heading to Detroit.

The first and final games of the set provide a couple of awesome pitching matchups. Jake Peavy (9-9, 3.09) goes Friday for Chicago and faces Doug Fister (7-8, 3.67). The finale features two Cy Young Award candidates in Chicago’s Chris Sale (15-5, 2.81) and Justin Verlander (12-7, 2.80).

Sale was hit hard in his last start against Baltimore, giving up four runs in four innings as well in his previous start against the Tigers on July 21 (five runs in seven innings). Verlander was also beat around in his last start against Kansas City, giving up a season-high eight earned runs in 5 2/3 innings. In his last outing against the White Sox on July 20, he went eight and allowed two runs.